A Brief Biography
of
Ezra Grover Carter
Written by his oldest son
Grover Carter
Page 2 of 4

---

He attended the public schools in Preston. The first school house in Preston had been built in 1879 and the Oneida Stake Academy, built in 1891 for $20,000, later became Preston High School.

Encouraged by his oldest half brother Joe, Ezra sold the cattle he had raised and came to Logan to attend the Utah Agricultural College. Joe had become a Ph.D. in bacteriology and head of that department at the college.

Between his college years, Ezra was called on a mission for the L.D.S. Church. He was sent to the Swiss German Mission where he learned to speak German fluently. In this way he became aquainted with European culture and developed a lifelong love for Switzerland. His mission was cut short by the outbreak of World War 1 when all of the missionaries were called home from Europe.

Ezra returned to Logan and completed his Bachelor of Science degree at the College. He became the first one of his lineage ever to get a college education and become a scientist and professional man. After graduation he became a graduate assistant in the Department of Bacteriology and Public Health where his older half-brother Joe was Professor.

It was at this time he met and courted and won his wife, Pearl Geneva Johnson. They first met at dances that were held after M.I.A. meetings in the 4th Ward amusement hall, and their first date was a concert. A friend had given Ezra tickets. As he was walking home from the Agricultural College he met Pearl walking home from the Brigham Young College and he asked her to go with him. Soon after, they were married.

He bought a house on 5th West in Logan, and he and his mother picked out and bought all the furniture without consulting the new wife at all. Although she loved him dearly, my mother has barely forgiven him for this.

In 1918, America was entering the first world war. Ezra took a commission in the U.S. Public Health Service as a bacteriologist and was assigned to Fort Oglethorp in Tennessee to supervise the sanitation of the food supply for the soldiers. After he had become established there, he sent for Pearl, who traveled alone to Tennessee. She expected and was eager to see Ezra at the train station but instead was met by a black man in a buggy who said she should go with him. Afraid and distrustful, she went, as there wasn't really any alternative. But it all ended happily, as she was soon reunited with Ezra, who had been unable to come because he was ill with pneumoina.

Pearl and Ezra liked the South and had an interesting and pleasant time there, but all true westerners must return to the West, when the war was over they came back to Logan and the house on 5th West. Ezra resumed his position at the college. Soon afterward they purchased the white frame house at 361 East 5th North, where I was born. Pearl has recounted her first impression on coming back to Logan. How barren and desolate it appeared in contrast to the beautiful greenery of the South, but it was home and they were soon deep in domesticity.

I (Grover) was born at the East 5th North house in 1919 and Mark at the Budge Memorial Hospital in 1921.

Ezra bought a lovely Jersey cow named Daisy to provide milk for the new children. She was kept in a pasture around the block from our house and was a great favorite with the little boys. Later the pasture became a large garden.